


Into the Blue

by trashwriter



Series: Finding Home [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff and Smut, BAMF Hobbits, Dwarf & Hobbit Cultural Differences, Dwarf Courting, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Dwarf/Hobbit Sex, Dwarven Ones | Soulmates, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Constipated Thorin, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Families of Choice, Female Bilbo, Hobbit Culture & Customs, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Porn, M/M, Misunderstandings, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Protective Thorin, Quest Re-write, Rule 63, Sibling Incest, The Baggins Sisters, There is indeed a plan, Threesome - F/M/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2018-12-07 03:51:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11615307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashwriter/pseuds/trashwriter
Summary: Bellflower Baggins is obliged to pose as her older and more adventurous sister, Clarabelle, when Gandalf brings thirteen dwarves to her doorstep on a mission that may just determine the fate of the world.





	1. Chapter 1

It was nearing elevensies and Bellflower Baggins, a hobbit of the Shire, was taking the air on her garden bench, as was her habit. She had an embroidery hoop on her lap but she wasn’t working on it, rather she was staring out over the rolling hills and verdant plains of the Shire, allowing herself to be mesmerized by the far off glint of light off the Water.

Her eyes were turned towards East Farthing, and though she had no real expectations she could not help but hope that perhaps this would be the day that her sister came trotting back up the Hill thinner and dirtier but filled with eagerness to relay the tale of her latest adventure in the far flung reaches of the outside world.

She had been waiting and wishing for a year and a half now, by Shire Reckoning, and she had little true expectation that today would be the day that her sister would return home. But she continued to wish because although Bag End was her beloved home, filled with good food and blessed with a warm hearth and her father’s large library of books and maps and other curiosities it was also distressingly empty.

Lonely without her sister’s stories and laughter.

Bell supposed she should be used to it by now, but each year that passed Clarabelle stayed away for longer, and Bag End became emptier. Filled with ghosts of the family that had all left her one way or the other.

As a well-respected hobbit lass of fair wealth and good birth perhaps the obvious solution was to do as the hobbit-wives all suggested and settle down. Marry and birth a half-dozen faunts of your own, her aunts would say, and you’ll find yourself missing the peace and quiet.

But Bell wasn’t keen on any of her suitors, not really.

Muro Burrowes was nice enough, of course, and they could speak on the subject of literature for long hours, and Baradoc Brandybuck made her laugh as easy as breathing, and Bonnie Harfoot and her husband Bolo had offered her a place within their formerly dyadic marriage tempting her away from Bag End for days at a time with picnics and pies and flowers and their adorable twin faunts, Mollie and Dottie.

And while she had a great deal of fun with each of them at the end of the day she didn’t fancy herself to be in love with any of them. Not the way that her mother had loved her father, certainly. And not even the way that the other eligible lasses of Hobbiton described their infatuations and dalliances.

She couldn’t see herself marrying if there wasn’t love involved. She wasn’t Lobelia. She had all she truly needed in her life already and she wasn’t going to make a rash decision based on a bit of blue feelings. That would be unkind and unfair to herself and her partner or partners.

But by the green lady she was lonely, so pervasively lonely that some days it felt like there was a wall of fine clear glass between herself and the rest of the world allowing her to see it but not to become a part of it.

A foolish thought, of course, but she often felt alone even in the middle of a crowd. Enough that she’d declined a number of party invitations and was beginning to attract nascent mutters about a lack of sociability.

She sighed and closed her eyes.

That would have to be addressed soon, she was aware, lest the gossip-mongers start spreading about wild speculations about why she was the way that she was. She had no patience to hear them bad-mouthing her mother or sister on her account, or indeed at all.

Belladonna and then Clarabelle had been affected by the Tookish wanderlust to an abnormal degree, it was all too true, but they were both so brave. Greeting their dawns in far-off places alongside foreign peoples, making friends, seeing sights untold and helping unfortunates.

She sometimes wished that she were that brave. Maybe then she would have followed Clarabelle out the door one dawn and even now be sitting next to her, perhaps somewhere out there in the untamed wild or maybe taking a rest in some city of men or elves or perhaps even dwarves.

She didn’t allow herself to think of reasons other than an adventuresome spirit that might be keeping Clarabelle from returning home.

She never did, for they were all far too painful to contemplate.

She was broken out of her musings as a long shadow passed over her and something tickled at her nose, making her sneeze.

The shadow belonged to an old Man.

He was tall, taller than a garden tree, dressed all in grey from the tip of his pointed hat to the hem of his long robes and he leaned heavily upon a gnarled walking stick. His eyes though were blue, clear and bright and filled with a sharpness that suggested a keen mind, at least to Bell. And they were fixed, quite firmly, on her.

“Good morning?” she offered after a bit, when the Man continued to stare.

“Is it now?” he replied, “You don’t seem terribly sure of that, but then perhaps I have mistaken your meaning. Perhaps you meant to inquire as to the nature of my own morning rather than commenting on yours.”

“Or perhaps I meant to prod you into introducing yourself and stating your business, good sir,” huffed Bellflower, hopping up off the bench so that the Man would not loom over her quite so thoroughly, “We don’t have many Big Folk pass through the Shire and you seem to have some business with me, staring as intently as you are.”

“Am I indeed?” said the Man, “And why shouldn’t I stare? To think that I would live to see the day when a daughter of Belladonna Took would bid me off with a too-politic ‘good morning’ as if I were selling buttons at the door.”

“I’m sorry, but do I know you?”

“Well, we have met before and you certainly know my name, though perhaps you do not remember that I belong to it. I am Gandalf, and Gandalf means me.”

Bell felt all the warmth drain out of her face and hands, and groped for the bench behind her, sitting heavily.

“You’re Gandalf?” she repeated. “If you are he, you must know—please, where is Clarabelle? Where is my sister?”

The Man—Wizard—Gandalf, frowned heavily.

“I had hoped to find her here,” Gandalf admitted, “We agreed to meet here before we embarked together on our next journey.”

“But you’ve heard from her?” Bell persisted.

“Not for some long months,” he said, “She was on the trail of a particular artifact that I had bade her to keep an ear out for, at her last letter. I assumed it had come to nothing and that she had elected to wait until our next scheduled meeting to tell me so.”

“She hasn’t been home,” Bell said, “There’ve been no letters, no word, not for over a year!”

“That…that is troubling.”

“Troubling? Troubling!” hissed Bell, “My sister is _missing_! She has never, _never_ , gone so long without a word and she wouldn’t miss an appointment without an extremely good reason.”

“Of that I am all too aware,” Gandalf said, “And it bodes ill, except that I would like to think I know Clarabelle quite well. She is careful and clever and most resourceful, perhaps there is a good reason for her delay.”

“Or maybe she’s lying dead in a ditch somewhere, cursing herself the fool for ever following after the whims of a Wizard!” She dearly wished at that moment that there was something to hand so that she could throw it at the presumptuous Wizard! “You have some nerve, Gandalf Greyhame! Showing your face at my door after you lured my sister off on one of your damn fool adventures! Damn you!”

And then to her eternal embarrassment she broke down and began to cry. Great heaving sobs that wracked her entire body and the Wizard in question was forced to all but carry her back indoors. Patting her shoulder and then disappearing only to reappear after a bit with a cup of tea and a fresh handkerchief.

She did throw something at him for that. The novel that she’d been reading wasn’t the ideal projectile but it did hit the Wizard square in the chest which brought her some small satisfaction.

For his part Gandalf seemed quite willing to take it in stride. He let her cry and curse his name until she was wrung dry. Slumping limp and exhausted into one of her kitchen chairs.

“Is there any chance that she is still alive?” Bell asked plainly, a good while later while the exhaustion still gifted her with a peculiar kind of nerve.

“There is every chance, my dear,” the Wizard answered immediately, “Hobbits are the most extraordinary and resilient creatures that I know of and Clarabelle uniquely so. Do not give write her off so readily.”

If the Wizard did not truly believe that Bell could find no sign of it in his face or manner. His blue eyes bore into her lit from the inside with a fire of conviction. Of faith.

Bellflower couldn’t imagine where the Wizard had obtained such surety from, but if he held to it then perhaps she too could afford to hope that she would see Clarabelle alive again. Perhaps worse for wear, but whole at the end of whatever trials she’d face.

He reminded her of her mother. She was a great proponent of the importance of having faith. That carrying hope and kindness along with you could carry you through whatever trials life could offer. Clarabelle had always taken those words to heart. Bell had always thought herself more like their father. Practical and reliable. Realistic. But perhaps the correct word was cynical because the fact of the matter was that against all evidence Gandalf believed that Clarabelle was alive, and Bell rather had not. Not until she’d looked into the Wizard’s eyes.

“Alright,” she said, dabbing at her watery eyes and running nose with a handkerchief. “Alright. I think you’d best explain to me just what you and my sister have been up to all these years you’ve apparently been in some sort of cahoots. And don’t spare the details.”

“As you wish, my dear Bellflower,” he said, “Well, the true beginning of this tale stretches into the Ages long past when the world was new and it tarries with the purpose of the Order of the Istari here on the physical plane in Arda, but all you need know to be situated is that I and my brothers have taken on the task of safeguarding this world from the forces of darkness.”

Bell nodded, her understanding. Her mother had spoken a time or two of such things and she was familiar with Gandalf’s meddling nature from her stories.

“I have the great good fortune of being well-travelled, and long in memory. And I have endeavoured since the fall of the Great Enemy to use that to the advantage of the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth, for always does evil seek to find a foothold in the world. In Rohan and some other towns and cities of Men they call me Stormcrow, for it seems I am always riding with the tide of bad news. It has made me unpopular to say the least, and recognizable. I discovered while travelling with Belladonna how useful a hobbit companion could be. For all folk seem well able to recognize the simple nature and good intentions of hobbits. They never questioned her motives for somehow your race is able to make it very clear that they only have in mind the good of all.”

Here Gandalf paused thinking over how to continue.

“She was well-beloved, your mother, by myself and a great many others for her kindness and courage. And I was deeply sorry to lose her to love and then again to death for she did more good in her short time on this Earth that I was able to accomplish in centuries alone. Her incisiveness helped me to see more clearly, her compassion help me to keep my priorities, and her bravery gifted me always with courage. She was extraordinary. And so is Clarabelle.

When I first met your sister, I had heard tale of a hobbit lass taken up with travelling performers and was taken up by such nostalgia that I sought her out. She was young then, just past her majority as you are now, but she gamely assisted me with my ventures in Eriador, freeing slaves from orcs and goblins along the way.”

“She never told me that,” Bell said faintly.

“No, she would not have.” Gandalf said, more than a tad ruefully, “She spoke of you to me often, of how you would worry yourself sick if you knew what she’d been doing. ‘Gandalf Greyhame,’ she would say, ‘If we had half the sense that my baby sister has in her littlest finger we would never have done such a ridiculously dangerous thing as that.’ And yet she never hesitated.”

“And the pair of you were fools together, many times over, I expect.”

“Quite right, my dear,” agreed Gandalf, “But the world sometimes has need of fools. Perhaps especially in Eriador and the Lonelands to the East. In the past, before the coming of the dragon Smaug, before the War of Dwarves and Orcs, the Longbeard clans worked alongside, if not exactly in tandem with, the men and elves of the East. Safe-guarding that flank of the world. But for nearly two centuries now there has been no one. The dwarves that once belonged to Erebor and their descendants are scattered nomads for the most part. The colony in the Blue Mountains is little more than a waystation for them, for they cannot make their home there without settling for the barest kind of existence. And dwarves do not settle for anything less than what will give them true happiness and keep their kith and kin safe.”

“That’s all well and good Gandalf, but what does it have to do with my sister’s disappearance?”

“I am getting to that my dear, presently,” the Wizard assured her, “It begins with the Longbeards, the Line of Durin, descended directly from the Lords of Khazad-dum. Of Moria.

During the time of the Great Enemy they were gifted, as all the seven leaders of the dwarf clans were, with a ring of power. The strength to rule was said to be inherent in the rings of power but it was a lie for each was tied to the One, which answered only to the Enemy himself.

It was a ploy to bring all the free peoples of Middle-Earth under his sway. None of the dwarves fell to the Enemy the way the great Kings of Men did, and nor were they forced to run and hide away like the elves. They endured. Solid as the stone from which their maker forged them a twice as stubborn. As the years past the rings were lost one by one, to death or more often the bane of dragons. All but one.

The Lords of Moria and then the Kings of Erebor passed their ring down from father to son and so on, until Smaug. After the dragon came the line of Durin began to chip and fracture. King Thror died on the field of battle, his son Thrain went mad with grief and disappeared into the Misty Mountains, of his two grandsons one also perished in the War of Dwarves and Orcs and the other knew nothing of his family’s double-edged heirloom. It seemed to me that I must accept that the forces of the Enemy had somehow acquired it, for they held the Misty Mountains against the dwarves that were birthed there time and time again.

But while many of the dwarves claimed that Thrain was lost and dead and hailed his son Thorin as the leader of the Longbeards and now as the somewhat less impressive King of Ered Luin, there were always rumours.

I was on the other side of the world when I received some small evidence that the rumours of Thrain’s survival might be more than just that. So I asked Clarabelle to investigate in my place. She was after all, brave, quiet, and clever and not known to the wider world as well as being well placed to act with haste. She knew the secret paths through the Misty Mountains and I had spoken to her often enough of my concerns that she had some measure of the gravity of the situation. It was the next best thing to ideal and I knew she would more than agree to help, she was likely to insist.”

“Fool of a Took,” Bell muttered, but it had little heat.

Lady help her but she was abominably proud of her big sister, who had all these long years been helping the wider world. Confronting untold dangers and misfortunes that never seemed to make it into the tales of her so-called adventures.

“Perhaps, perhaps we were both fools,” Gandalf admitted, “But we saw little more danger in this plan than any of our others. And in fact I secured her agreement to help with the second stage of the plan long before she ever reached the mountains. We agreed that whether her search bore fruit or not that the shadow and threat of the dragon in the East needed to be dealt with in good time. And that we should meet at Bag End after the last of the spring thaw before putting it into action.”

“And here you are,” said Bell.

“And here I am,” agreed Gandalf, with a long sigh that seemed to settle over his shoulders like a weight, “I had not counted on Clarabelle not returning in good time for I believe she is sorely needed for this venture to succeed.”

“And what venture, is that exactly?” asked Bell, “And for lady’s sake, Gandalf don’t hedge so abominably. I can see you circling around whatever point you’ve conjured. And I’m sorry but I feel I must speak frankly. I’ve no time for it. It’s coming in clear that with Clarabelle gone you have some fancy or favour to request and I’ll hear it, if only for the friendship my mother and sister and grandfather all bear you.”

Gandalf arched one bushy brow at her thoughtfully, but there was the suggestion of a smile in the corners of his eyes.

“As you like, then, I shall speak very plainly indeed,” he said, leaning forward over the kitchen table as if to include her in some confidence, which Bell supposed, he was, after a fashion, “I have said repeatedly throughout my tale that the dragon must be dealt with, he has weighed heavy on my mind these long years until finally I was persuaded by good timing to seek out Thorin Oakenshield. He is the only other being on the green of the earth that I could conjure as having as much or more motivation than myself to undertake such a task. And more to the point he has the means at his disposal that I do not. Durin’s ring might be lost but there is another artifact that might hold equal sway over the dwarf-lords of the seven kingdoms. When Thror ruled under the mountain he uncovered a gem that he came to call the Arkenstone. The so-called Heart of the Mountain. I suspect the gem was long ago birthed in the heat of a dying star. It is beyond equal, and in the golden age of Erebor when Thror was still a young king the other dwarf-lords swore their allegiance over its glow. If Thorin, the rightful King Under the Mountain, was able to lay hands on that stone it is possible and even likely that the other dwarf-lords would be obliged to muster their armies and face Smaug for control of the mountain. And given the dragon’s age and inactivity I have a great deal of hope that they would succeed in such a venture. The Firebeard clan has ancient methods of dealing with dragons. The tactics set down in the days of Narvi when drakes were far larger and far more numerous. The dwarves know it can be done and they have the means to do it.”

“And what was Clarabelle’s role to be in all this?” asked Bell, a horrible sinking suspicion coming over her.

“Clarabelle was to be the one to retrieve the Arkenstone from the hoard of Smaug.”

There was a ringing silence over the kitchen table at this pronouncement, while Bell reeled at the implications.

“Are you mad? The pair of you?” she demanded, as sharply as she was able with her words feeling so flat and far away, “You wanted to have Clarabelle go into the lair of a living dragon and steal from it? Where she’d be caught and eaten for certain? Either you both are completely out of your minds or you had to be at the leaf for the whole of a day and a night to conjure such a ridiculous plan!”

“Beg pardon but I think it is an eminently sensible plan,” huffed Gandalf. “Smaug has never been further West than the lands around the Mountain and if he ever encountered a hobbit before it would have been in ages long past, during the Wandering. Hobbits are incredibly light on their feet, they pass unseen by bigger folk as soon as their of the mind and they are each of them so instinctively light-fingered it is fortunate they tend to prefer filching cooling pies to coins. The plan was for Clarabelle to journey from the Shire to the Lonely Mountain with Thorin Oakenshield and whatever immediate aid he could muster and slip the Arkenstone out from under Smaug’s sleeping snout. Without a scent of danger to penetrate his dreams Smaug would not sense that aught was amiss until the armies of the dwarves were already upon him and unsealing the Front Gate of Erebor.”

“And what if the blighted dragon was not asleep?” Bell demanded, “What then?”

“Then Clarabelle is small enough and swift enough to escape into Erebor’s depths, where Smaug would be unable to reach her and she’d be able to escape at her leisure and the dwarves of Erebor would likely fight bitterly regardless,” said Gandalf more solemnly, “You must believe me Bellflower neither Clarabelle, nor myself had any intention of being reckless with her life.”

“And what about what the pair of you did not intend? Hmm,” Bell snapped, “What about those things that your oh-so-carefully laid plans did not account for? Such small details as the fact that my sister is yet to return from her last blighted mission, perhaps?”

“And here we come to the point,” said Gandalf, equally as sharp.

Bell frowned heavily, “You can’t mean—surely not?”

“And why not?” said Gandalf, “You are a hobbit and a Took. The youngest and most practical daughter of Belladonna, you are a perfect candidate for the task.”

“Dear lady, I do believe you are serious,” muttered Bell, incredulous, “I am a Baggins! _The_ Baggins! Of Bag End! I’m not like my sister, nor even my mother—Gandalf, I am the Mistress of an estate not a brave warrior or an intrepid adventurer. I’ve never been farther past the borders of the Shire than Frogmorton, and frankly my idea of a challenging pest is a dandelion, not a dragon!”

The Wizard made a harrumphing type of noise and gave her a very stubborn look.

“Even if all that were entirely true, which, mark me, I’m not convinced that it is, the fact of the matter is this; you have a kind and tender heart Bellflower Baggins, and a remarkable sense of duty that is at the core of a Baggins. The dwarves of Erebor cannot succeed in this venture without you, they crave above all else the return of their homeland, the safety of their kin, and they will march on the Mountain now regardless of anything any other being might have to say on the matter. Without the advantage you can provide them they will fail. They will wake the dragon in their attempts and it will lay waste to his neighbours in his fury and perhaps woken and riled and terribly cunning he will ally with the shade of the Great Enemy and be used to terrible effect.”

“I do believe you are trying to make me feel guilty for not wanting to be eaten,” said Bell, jumping up from her seat in indignation, “And I will say I don’t appreciate being spoken to in such a manner in my own home!”

“You yourself bade me to speak my mind and I have Bellflower Baggins,” snapped the Wizard, “I have explained as plainly and fully as I am capable, what I feel must be done and why I feel it must be done.”

He was right of course, as he laid it out before her like a seamstress with a bolt of new cloth to sell Bell could see the consequences of such a failure rolling out before her into a bleak, dark future. And perhaps if Bell was a Bracegirdle or a Proudfoot she might stubbornly refuse to believe that any of that darkness could touch the Shire. But she wasn’t. She was a Baggins of Bag End, sturdy and practical to a fault, and she was a Took and one of the few hobbits outside Tuckborough who truly knew how the wider world did in fact touch on their borders and just what was required to keep that contact so blessedly minimal.

“And why should I have to be the one to do it?” she asked quietly. “Why did you come to me?”

Gandalf deflated somewhat at that.

“I wish I did not have to, Bellflower, believe you me, I would like nothing more than to stand shield between darkness and the world. But that is beyond me, and not for me to decide in any case. Many believe that it is only great strength that keeps darkness at bay, but I have found that this is not so. Kindness, courage, selfless acts of friendship and love—in the end it is always these small acts of people doing the best that they may that do the most good. Once I would have overlooked you, sought to shelter you, perhaps, from the seriousness of the path now laid before your feet. You are needed on this quest Bellflower Baggins, I know it as I know my own name. The truth of it feels writ upon my very bones, but to help or to not…it is your decision to make. I should not have pushed you so, my dear. I am sorry.”

 “I—I need a moment,” she said, fleeing into her father’s study.

Bell felt her breath speeding up and her head going foggy. She pressed her hands against the desk there until her knuckles were white and aching from the strain hoping to find some solid ground.

In the hall the clock chimed the hour for luncheon, but for once Bell had no appetite. Standing there, at the desk looking down at the ledger she’d been studying yesterday afternoon but not really seeing it Bell felt as though the rest of the world fell away, leaving her on her little island of Bag End. Safe, safe at home as she’d been for nearly twenty years while her sister went on adventures and faced untold dangers and she was so, so alone. And Clarabelle was gone.

For all the Wizard’s talk of dooms both long past and yet to be that was the thing that struck her the hardest. Her sister had disappeared and she hadn’t known that anything was seriously amiss, and now that she did know there was not a blighted thing she could do about it. Except that that wasn’t true. Not exactly. Whether Clara was dead or alive the fact of it was that she had decided to do this insane task, and she’d want it seen to.

Bell wasn’t like her mother and sister, she didn’t itch to get the road under her feet, nor did she crave excitement. But she knew a great deal about duty, and love and doing the right proper thing even if it wasn’t the done thing. Even if she was afraid.

She’d never let fear stop her before, not when it mattered. When the petitions came in to have her removed as Mistress of Bag End and the Hill she’d been so terribly afraid that she would lose it all while Clara was away, her home and her purpose snatched away. She’d though there was no greater fear than the one she felt standing before the Mayor and pleading her case. And then a pack of wild dogs had made free of one of her protectorates sheep and she’d thought then that she would faint from terror even as she stood with the Bounders and shot the big feral beasts full of arrows.

She’d never let fear keep her from doing what she thought needed doing before, and she wasn’t about to start now.

There was a small portrait of her mother and Clarabelle sitting on the desk in easy view. Her father had placed it there and Bell had never been able to bring herself to move it so much as an inch. She picked it up now and smoothed her thumb over the bumps and ridges of the paint.

“I know what I must do but I’m afraid,” she told them, voice softer than a whisper. “Help me be brave.”

There was no answer from the painting of course, but Bell still felt a little better for having made the decision. Better to have a purpose, a directive, then to flounder about in guilt and grief. She dashed her sleeves over her eyes though she didn’t remember crying and calmly as she was able she sent herself back down the hall to the kitchen.

Gandalf was still there, a cloud of pipe smoke brooding around his head like a storm cloud.

 “Alright,” she said, catching his attention, smoothing her hands down the front of her skirts and standing up a little straighter as his keen blue eyes settled on her.

“Alright?”

“Alright,” she repeated more briskly, “I agree to take part this raving lunacy. I will help you and these dwarves as best as I may. What needs to be done?”


	2. Chapter 2

 

Bell was glad of the nerves. The nerves kept her cooking and distracted for much of the day after the Wizard was gone from her parlour and well into the day after that, and as such she’d prepared a feast the likes of which Bag End hadn’t seen since her sister’s coming of age party a good twenty years previous.

She’d also borrowed Holman Greenhand’s cart and pony for an evening and gone out to Buckland to visit with her newlywed cousins Drogo and Primula.  They were the best hobbits she could think of to care for Bag End and the Hill while she was gone. They were still staying in Brandy Hall in one of the smaller smials and would doubtless enjoy the year or so of privacy and the chance to get their selves in order that doing her the favour would provide. Additionally Drogo was quiet and clever by nature with a good helping of Baggins practicality and between him and the Gamgees she’d no doubt that her protectorates would be in good hands.

Gandalf expected that they would be gone for many months with the dwarves, perhaps even for a full year, and if Bell did decide to pick up and go after her sister when the journey was done, well, she might be gone a good long while indeed. Perhaps she would return with Clarabelle to find Bag End filled with life and the high gleeful laughter of fauntlings.

That would be quite agreeable.

In any case the nerves leant her a frenetic sort of energy and refused to let her sit still and as such they saw her through such preparations and she had most of the packing done. Her cousin Adalgrim, who was doing his four terms with the Bounders as all the Took sons did, was able to get his hands on a bow for her. The two of them had hung the old target up on the cherry tree and made sure she still knew what was what. Shooting through a full quiver was enough proof that she still had the knack for it, though not as much the arm strength.

Adalgrim and her other Took cousin, Flambard, with the minimal information that she was going on an adventure with Gandalf in an attempt to find Clarabelle, had gotten involved in her preparations and she found herself with hand-me-down trousers and shirts and worn jackets and a good travelling cloak, and also for some unfathomable reason a dented up old skillet that Flambard insisted was lucky. Fortunately it hooked quite neatly to her mother’s old pack so it wasn’t needful that she argue about it.  

And now all that was left to do was to wait for the dwarves to arrive, and try to do at least a passable imitation of her sister.

The nerves were slightly less helpful with that bit.

Clara did not subscribe to nerves, in fact she had rejected them so completely in favour of laughter and reckless bravery that if Bell were to guess she would say her sister no longer felt them at all.

Bell had agreed to the deception at Gandalf’s insistence. Dwarves, apparently, were slow to trust outside their own kin and had a few particular hang-ups regarding females.  The Wizard hadn’t said it outright but Bell was under the distinct impression that the dwarves had given him quite a bit of grief over his choice of burglar and he wasn’t keen on repeating the argument when there was little enough choice in the matter.

She reached for one of the ginger biscuits still cooling on the rack in hopes that a bit of a nibble would ease some of the turning of her stomach. And when that proved to be neither helpful, nor particularly unhelpful, she reached for another.

She was most of the way through the baking sheet when there was a knock at the door.

Bell jumped what felt nearly a foot off the floor, and put a hand to her fluttering heart, trying to steady her breathing.

“Goodness gracious, Bellflower Baggins, do stop being such a ninny. Act like Clarabelle,” she admonished herself under her breath, “Clara would not be nervous about simple visitors.”

She smoothed out her skirts and swiped at her face for stray crumbs and smiled her best party smile as she opened the door.

It was a lucky thing that she was not a hobbit who was prone to a loss of composure. Because when Gandalf had said that the Company she was to be hosting was composed entirely of dwarves she hadn’t realized just how large and intimidating dwarves could be.

The one before her was head and shoulders above her in height and what little of him that was not adorned with heavy geometric fabric or dense dark hair was covered liberally with thick slabs of muscle and faded blue-black tattoos. There were also the axes. Axes as tall as her own self strapped to his back. Two of them.

“Dwalin, at your service,” he rumbled, offering her a shallow bow.

“Clarabelle Baggins at yours,” she said, she was surprised at how her voice didn’t tremble though clasped behind her back, her hands were shaking.

Act like Clarabelle, she reminded herself. Clarabelle loved strangers. She smiled a little wider and little more welcoming.

“Do come in Mister Dwalin,” she said, standing aside to allow him into Bag End, “You’re the first to arrive so we’re not quite ready for supper to begin but you can feel very free to wash up in the water closet down the hall and I’ll see about getting you settled with a bit of ham and cheese to tide you over until the others in your party arrive.”

“My thanks, lass, it’s been a long road,” the warrior dwarf rumbled, unclasping his travelling cloak and handing it over to her.

She took it and the harness with the axes, and good Green Lady they were even larger up close, and with minimal fumbling she got them hung up on a peg by the door while Dwalin went to wash up.

Bell let out a deep breath. Her heart was still skipping against her ribs like a frightened rabbit’s but all in all she didn’t think that had gone too badly.

She bustled back into the kitchen setting out a spread of cheeses and toasts and choice bits of cold cured ham and deviled eggs and dipping pots of oil and butter and a baker’s dozen of savoury scones. After some debate she also unveiled the smoked trout fillets sliced so thin that they would melt in the mouth like a sliver of ice all seasoned with basil and lemon.

“Mistress Baggins?”

“Just in here,” she called back, futzing with the layout so that the whipped cheese was in better reach.

She turned around just in time to watch Dwalin’s eyes widen perceptibly, and she was just a tiny bit proud of herself. After all what hobbit could say that they’d put out a cold spread that was impressive to even hardboiled dwarven warriors?

“Help yourself to whatever you’d like, just save some room for supper and dessert,” she said, “There’s plenty more. I went a bit overboard with the cooking when Gandalf said there would be thirteen of you. Come sit.”

Dwalin didn’t say anything but he did seem to flounder at all the choice before him, examining the offered fare but not quite daring to reach for any of it.

Well, when in doubt, fall back on good hosting, Bell thought to herself.

“I do insist you try a bit of this, my father’s own recipe it’s just the thing to whet an appetite,” she said.

She slit a roll down the middle and slathered it liberally with whipped cheese and delicate fish setting it before the dwarf with a flourish. The dwarf took a hesitant bite and made a noise that would have been quite indecent in other circumstances.

Bell was well pleased. It seemed that much like with hobbits and animals even bristly dwarf warriors could be somewhat tamed through the use of good food and lots of it.

“Just so,” she said patting his arm briefly before bustling off to fill up a tankard of ale.

With her blessing fully given Dwalin laid waste to her cheese table with vigour, thanking her gruffly for the ale and generally looking and sounding like he was enjoying himself.

Bell didn’t bother with small talk, though in any other circumstances she would have been considered quite rude for dispensing with it. There was something familiar about the way that Dwalin hunched over his plate, and the manner of his eating. Clara had come home from an adventure like that a time or two, too skinny and with a body convinced that the meal in front of her was the last good meal she was going to see.

The road was a hard place, Bell reminded herself, and Dwalin and the others were perhaps coming from as far as the Blue Mountains and hoping to make a meeting in good time. It should not surprise her to learn that they’d skipped a few meals though it did prick at her hobbity sensibilities.

Still the dwarf was being properly fed now and the others in his party would be as well, she’d done as much as she might do and there was nothing left but to make them all very welcome. That being the case she tucked herself into her own seat and sipped at her summerwine and partook in a scone or two or six with a bit of the whipped cheese and enjoyed her guest’s enjoyment of her cooking until the bell rang out.

Dwalin paused.

“That will be more of the company I’m sure,” she said, “I’ll see to it, not to worry.”

Dwalin grunted but levered himself up from the kitchen table and followed her as far as the parlour, his mug of ale in hand. Lurking in the shadows like some great lumbering bear.

On the other side of the door was another dwarf. This one was not quite so obviously a warrior as Dwalin. He was older, his hair white as new fallen snow and unbraided or adorned which Bell thought was a bit odd. He was dressed in a cunningly tailored maroon coat and a wide geometric belt and he had a friendly welcoming face.

“Balin, son of Fundin, at your service,” he said by way of greeting dipping a cheerful bow.

“Clarabelle Baggins, Belladonna’s daughter, at yours,” she said bobbing an answering curtsy, “Good evening.”

“Aye, ‘tis Mistress, though I think it might rain later,” he answered, moving past her and into Bag End, “Am I late?”

“Not at all, you are the second to arrive in fact,” she said, “I’ve said to Mister Dwalin that we’ll wait for the rest to start supper but in the meantime there is plenty of bread and cheese and ale.”

“Plenty,” agreed Dwalin.

“Aha! Evening brother,” greeted Balin, with a wide grin.

“Mahal’s beard, Balin, you’re shorter and wider than last we met,” Dwalin said, a smile of his own that brightened up his dour face into something approximating handsomeness.

“Wider perhaps, not shorter. And sharp enough for the both of us.”

“And that is sharp indeed,” said Dwalin embracing his brother and knocking their heads together with the force of battering rams.

Bell started a bit at the noise of it but the brothers were both laughing and embracing so she decided it was best to just fetch another pitcher of ale and not question it too much.

When she returned she found that Dwalin had wasted no time in sitting Balin down at his former seat, and was foisting trout and cheese on him.

“…must try this, Durin himself didn’t eat this well.”

“Yes, indeed? Well fill it up brother, don’t stint!”

Bell smiled more widely, there was nothing quite as satisfying as satisfied supper guests and if they thought this was good she had plenty more in store for them.

“Here we are, Mister Balin,” she said, “Good brown ale to wash the dust of the road from your mouth. And help yourself to the facilities if you’re of a mind for a wash there’s soap and clean linens.”

“Thank you very much, Mistress, this is quite the spread and welcome for humble travelers.”

“Pish and tosh,” Bell said, hands on her hips, “If there is any law set down by gods and mortals more sacred than guest right, I don’t want to hear about it.”

She got identical bushy eyebrow raises for that statement but before they had time to interrogate her further the bell was once again ringing, and leaving guests on the stoop would quite belie her words.

She swung open the door feeling a bit flustered again, given her outburst, but even more determined to keep on. On the front porch were a pair of dwarves. They were younger dwarves unless Bell missed her guess given their smooth, unweathered features and the relative lengths of their beards.

“Fili,” said the shorter one with the golden hair, “and Kili,” continued the tall dark haired one, “At your service.”

They said this together, bowing in unison.

And then the dark haired one, Kili, grinned widely at her, and said: “You must be Mister Boggins!”

Bell arched a brow at him.

“No,” she said sharply, hands on her hips, “I would be _Mistress_ and _Baggins_ , Clarabelle Baggins, at your service thank you very much.”

“Apologies for my brother Mistress Burglar, he meant no offense,” said the other one, Fili, “We weren’t given a lot of information before we had to be off and we must have gotten some of the details muddled. I do beg your forgiveness.”

“Quite alright,” Bell said automatically, though how they could have muddled her sex given the cut of her dress was really beyond her.

“Come on inside, there’s appetizers and ale. A few of the others have already arrived so you two can feel free to join them in the kitchen.”

“Food and ale both? You may be my new favourite person Mistress Baggins,” said Fili with a slow smile that flustered her for an entirely different reason.

They both began divesting themselves of their weapons, and handing them over to her, which seemed to be a somewhat ceremonious undertaking. Kili had a bow and a sword and a few small knives whereas Fili was a walking armoury. There were the two swords and then more knives and small axes than Bell would have thought there were places to hide them piling up into her arms.

“Careful of the edges, I just had them sharpened.”

“This is a nice place,” Kili said wandering through the front parlour and back again, spinning in circles to get a look at everything. “Did you do it yourself?”

“No, no it’s been in the family for a good number of years now. My father built it for my mother as a courting gift.”

“Really?” said Kili, taking in the arches and carvings with a new light in his eyes, “He must have loved her very much.”

Bell smiled, “He really did. It was the talk of the Shire when they matched up. My mother did love my father but she had the Took wanderlust and left to have adventures instead of settling down. My father wanted her to have a place that would tempt her home.”

“Come on, lads or we’ll have all the ale drunk without you,” Dwalin said, dragging Kili along in a one-armed embrace that bore more resemblance to a headlock.

Still Kili seemed pleased enough if his delighted: “Mister Dwalin!” was anything to go by.

Kili’s weapons hung easily enough but she had to store most of Fili’s in the box-bench to keep them from getting mixed up with the others’, and they really were quite, quite sharp.

By the time that was sorted the bell was ringing again and a whole troupe of dwarves tumbled in through the door. They introduced themselves in a flurry of elaborate hairstyles and elaborate bows offering more weapons and service than Bell knew what to do with and behind them was the Wizard.

“Gandalf,” she said, neutrally as she was able, fumbling with a war hammer.

“How is it going?” he asked.

“Well, enough I suppose,” she said, “And about to get even better I suspect, since I think it’s about time I served supper.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you, my dear, by all means.”

Gandalf’s eyes twinkled and Bell shook her head, “Incorrigible Wizard. I’ll crack open a bottle of the old wineyard for you, shall I?”

“That would be very welcome, indeed.”

The kitchen was pure chaos, lively greetings clashed with brutal arguments over the last dregs of the cheese plate. One of the older and more elaborately decorated dwarves had taken up the duty of offering tea while Fili and Kili hauled a keg of good Green Dragon ale up the hall from the cellars.

In fact Bell was obliged to stand on a chair and whistle like she would have done in the Great Smials to catch the attention of the dwarves.

“Time for dinner I think, lads!” she said to a rousing cheer, “If some of you will help with the carrying we’re all going to move to the back hall where I’ve set up the table for you!”

And then, well, the ovens and pantries of Bag End were not to be sneered at. There were platters heaped high with salted pork dressed in caramelized apples and melting butter, whole roast chickens stuffed with egg-bread and onions, a thick hearty stew with chunks of carrots and potato and tender beef, more bread hot out of the oven and plenty of roasted tomatoes, mushrooms and peppers.

Bell took particular pride in the way the dwarves’ eyes got wider and wider with each tray produced like magic from the warming ovens. There were pan-fried sausages, pickled cubes of pumpkin and beet, more potatoes whipped with herbs and butter, carefully preserved squashes from the fall baked to perfection and drizzled with honey and more varieties of preserves then you could shake a stick at.

Bell had fair emptied her pantries, both in an effort to make the dwarves feel welcome and for the more practical concern of keeping everything from spoiling and stinking up the smial before Drogo and Primula arrived from Buckland next month.  

The dwarves all tucked in with gusto, calling out recommendations and actually tossing this or that choice morsel down the table for their fellows to try. It was crowded enough that Fili actually got up on the table to serve more ale. Boots and all!

Bell tucked herself in at the end of the table so that she could get up and fetch the desserts as the platters began to empty and to avoid the worst of the spillage. She was next to a dwarf who amazingly enough seemed to have no trouble functioning with the point of an axe embedded deep in his forehead.

She attempted to ask him if he was quite alright, though it was clear that the axe was an old one and preserved and weatherproofed in some sort of clear resin, and received naught but rumbling gibberish for her trouble.

“He’s got an injury,” explained the dwarf with the ear-trumpet, whose name Bell hadn’t hung onto very well. “Doesn’t have the common tongue anymore, I’m afraid, but he’s still a braw fighter. Pass the pickles, won’t you lass?”

Bell didn’t quite see how the dwarves could be so nonchalant about the remainder of an axe stuck in their comrade’s head but it didn’t seem to be hindering the dwarf, Bifur, any. As she slipped the requested pickles over to the appropriate dwarf she noted that he was having a discussion with Gandalf that appeared to be more than half-done through the use of some form of hand-sign.

“You’re quite right, Bifur,” said the Wizard, “We appear to be one dwarf short. Where is Thorin?”

“He’s late is all,” Dwalin said, more at ease after plenty of good food and ale and surrounded by his raucous fellows, “He travelled north to a meeting of our kin. He will come.”

“I’d best set something aside then,” she murmured getting up to fill a platter for the leader of the dwarves who was the individual she would really need to impress.

Listening to the cheering and belching coming from the back rooms Bell couldn’t help but wonder, not for the first time, why she’d let the Wizard drag her into this deception. Then, as they always seemed to, her thoughts turned to her sister and how she’d agreed to help Gandalf make Middle-Earth safer by tracking down dangerous magical artifacts and burgling from dragons. Could she really offer anything less? Especially when a Wizard, however bothersome and presumptuous, was convinced of the necessity?

The answer, as it had been every time she took a moment to mull over her doubts was no. She would do what her sister and mother would have wanted and help the Wizard, help the dwarves and hopefully find some sign of Clara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was meant to be a longer chapter but the Fili/Bell interactions just weren't working out and I really couldn't justify holding it back when I could just write another chapter when I had them sorted
> 
> as always comments, questions and suggestions are very welcome!

**Author's Note:**

> As fascinated by Lady!Bilbo AUs as I've become in the past few years I never thought I be sitting down to write one, much less one that wasn't going to feature any Bagginshield. But then I read the synthesia au - What's it Like? and I loved the Fili/Kili/Bilbo interaction so much that I had that itch to write something with that dynamic and then a whole host of little twists and turns came bubbling up out of the woodwork and well here we are at the start of an adventure!
> 
> This is my first sit down epic in a long while and I feel like I'm a little rusty so with that in mind I would love to hear all your thoughts on the writing, the characters, the romantic arc(s) and any suggestions you might have to make my plot twists even twistier!


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